Community over Competition - What it REALLY Means
Community over competition. It’s a phrase we hear a lot, but rarely see in action. As hard as it can be to break out of the competition mindset, it IS possible. Here’s a real-life example of community over competition in action.
How do you know each other?
Christina - Anaphora Designs
I first met Christina as a the owner of a local wedding venue and budding florist. She needed help sourcing some materials for a couple of her weddings. Christina took my pricing class and I’m working with her in the Pretty & Profitable Plan. Last year, when I was looking for a new designer for my studio, I reached out to several local shop & studio owners to see if they knew of anyone. Christina had decided to sell the venue while continuing as a wedding coordinator and florist. She wanted to focus on increasing her skills as a florist and was interested in working for someone else as a way to get more hands-on experience for both design work and shop management. I wanted someone who could manage the studio while I grew the consulting business. So we set up an apprenticeship. Christina continues to run her floral business while working for me part time. We balance this by coordinating our schedules and events and keeping track of materials purchased by one but used by the other.
Kaity - The Photo Love / Pressed By Kaity
Kaity is a woman of many talents. I first met Kaity as a photographer. We worked together on several weddings and I’d always admired her work. Even before we began working together, I would recommend her to my clients. Several years ago, I needed extra help for Mother’s Day and Kaity was available. She’d never worked with flowers, but has a creative eye. After that, she began working with me and I trained her as a florist. She continued as a photographer as well. Recently, she’s added bouquet preservation to her repertoire.
Kortney - Three Little Blooms
Kortney began her floral career a few years ago. She has a home-based studio where she designs weddings, events and flowers for daily occasions. We connected through my consulting business when Kortney hired me as her business consulting & coach. When I needed help with a Christmas installation, Kortney was available. Since then, I’ve hired her as a freelance designer multiple times (for both Christmas and wedding work) while continuing to work with her as a consulting client.
How did you move away from thinking (and feeling) ‘these are my competitors.’
I’m not going to sugar coat it—this was HARD. We are taught that to succeed in business, someone else must fail; that you have to be the best and anything less is failure; that sharing what you do and how you do it will hurt you business. For small businesses, this is incredibly isolating. For years, there was only one person locally that I was comfortable talking to about pricing, about how to create a new design, or ask for help when I had too much on my plate.
Even before Covid, I worried about what would happen if something happened (a car wreck, an illness) and I couldn’t design a wedding. After all, weddings are hard deadlines-there’s no wiggle room for delays. I was limited in how much I could take on because I had a limited amount of help and there’s only so much we could do. And I did everything myself. Like many of you, I wore all the hats and did all the things.
Social media would send me into a spiral of negative thinking. I’d see beautiful designs by other florists and feel like I’d failed because I hadn’t booked that wedding, because I didn’t have a wedding every. single. week. Even knowing that everyone was just posting their best work and that their lives (probably) had the same behind-the-scenes issues that I was dealing with, the negativity was hard to fight off.
Finally, I decided to actively change some of this. Completely out of my comfort zone, I created a Facebook group for local florists and reached out to as many as I could to invite them to join. I called and invited them to have coffee or lunch. I went to every meeting for our local wedding vendors group. (This was excruciatingly difficult-I’m a true introvert. Small talk is hard for me.) Basically, I practiced. And it worked. I became friends with a few people and acquaintances with a few more. I started building a community.
That was the outer work. The inner work was harder. Every time I caught myself feeling less-than, I tried replacing the negative thoughts with positive ones. (Most of the time, this was actually less-negative rather than true positive thoughts.) I stayed off social media as much as possible. And when I was on it, I made it a point to comment with compliments and like their work. I constantly reminded myself that these are people that like the things I like, they are people that enjoy doing what I do…and it would be a shame if we didn’t share that! This was not a fast process. Really, it took years before it stuck. And even so, there are days where I just feel like everyone is doing this better than I am. (It’s usually when I get stuck in a social media endless scroll.) But for the most part, I can generally see beautiful creations and feel appreciation and happiness for them rather than negative comparisons or envy.
Althea - Rose of Sharon Floral Designs / J Althea Creative Consulting
Aren’t you afraid someone will steal x, y, or z?
No, not really. We don’t share client information. Anything else, I tend to be pretty open about. We also don’t share images without asking first.
How does it work?
We all have different strengths. By focusing on those, we support each other. Kaity is a multi-creative. She can take beautiful photos, preserve bouquets, design anything from a corsage to an arbor. Kortney isn’t afraid to tackle a new design. Show her how to do something & she’s off and running. Christina shines at large arrangements and organic designs. And I love being the conductor of it all. Organizing the details, allocating resources and skills, keeping things on track and on time — these are fun to me.
Christina // Althea // Kaity // Kortney
Last week I hired Kaity, Kortney & Julie (not pictured here, but also part of this network of floral friends) as freelance designers to help me and Christina with the events I had scheduled. We worked out a schedule that allowed Christina and I to book 12 events over 9 days where we all got some time off.
In the upcoming months, Christina, Kaity, Kortney & Julie will work as designers for me while Christina & Kaity will work for Kortney as designers and I will work for her as the event set-up manager. Kaity and I will also work for Julie as designers. And finally, Kortney and I will work for Christina as designers. I will continue to train Christina in shop management (as my apprentice) and work with Kortney (as a consultant.)
These women are NOT competition! They have strengths that I don’t have. Their business models are all different from mine. They connect with customers in ways that I don’t (and vice versa). Together we are stronger and our businesses are better. THIS is true community.
Oh, and really good calendars are important!
Rose of Sharon: @roseofsharonfloral
J Althea Creative: @jaltheacreative
Anaphora Designs: @anaphoradesigns
The Photo Love: @thephotolove
Pressed by Kaity: @pressedbykaity
Three Little Blooms Floral Studio: @threelittleblooms_floraldesign